Friday, November 06, 2015

What is going on? You'd think after all these years of effort there would be improvement. But it seems every year we get a new batch of white noobs jumping on the ridiculous, offensive, "Become Indigenous" bandwagon.

Look, of course "Indigenous" sounds weightier and more credible than "pagan" or "polytheist" or "animist" (or what the people doing this really are: Newagers). Of course the terms in our own languages are hard for outsiders to understand. You know what? Too bad.

Anyone can connect with the Earth. We all have ancestors who sang to the spirits and felt the power in the land. But we aren't them.

Yes, many of us follow revived traditions in the diaspora. But we have only been able to do that after several decades of hard work at that revival and reconstruction. We are in no way the same as people indigenous to a landbase who did not go through hundreds (if not millenia) of cultural disruption the way the European ancestors did.

Those of us who are born from colonizers, or who have even gone so far as to colonize traditional communities, Are. Not. Indigenous. Our religions, no matter how animistic, polytheistic, and earth-honouring, are not Indigenous, either.

As someone committed to preserving the ways of my ancestors*, who has taken the message of finding my own roots to heart, it angers and disturbs me to no end to see white nuagers plagiarizing our hard work and trying to use it to hide the fact that they are pretendians. (And thieves.)

We have chosen to offer these things for free on the web, because we are opposed to commodifying the sacred. Feel free to be inspired by them and share them, with credit, in community. BUT, this has never been an invitation to plagiarize us, to use our words, our research, our personal experiences, or our creations without credit. Even worse, and shocking, is for nuagers to rip us off and then try to use our work to set themselves up as some kind of fake "Celtic Animist" or "Indigenous Celtic", pray to pray operation. If you see someone doing this, confront them. We appreciate it. And if we have to, we know some excellent copyright lawyers if retractions are not forthcoming.

*Note on ancestry: My ancestry is way more diverse and rich in melanin than I knew growing up. I have distant ancestry from Turtle Island (as far as we know, Catawba, with confirmed blood relatives among the Cherokee, Choctaw, and possibly the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho), the Sámi, the Roma/Sinti, South Asia, Central Asia and West Africa). But while that is interesting, and has led me to find cherished relatives in diverse communities, the family culture and in-person community I was raised in is overwhelmingly Irish-/Scottish-American, and as I pass as white to anyone who looks at me in person, I have white privilege. I grew up in Irish American and Irish immigrant communities, and have for many years now worked in collectives with relatives in the Celtic Nations and the First Nations. #AppropriationIsNotSolidarity

Kathryn Price NicDhàna

Gaelic Polytheism, Cultural Preservation, Indigenous Solidarity

Occasional musings from one of the original troublemakers behind the contemporary Gaelic Polytheist (GP) (Gaelic: Ioma-Dhiadhachd Ghàidhealach; Irish: Ildiachas Gaelach) and Celtic Reconstructionist traditions. Allegedly the person to blame for that unwieldy, awkward, misinterpreted and misrepresented, umbrella tradition name (CR), and most definitely to blame for the Nigheanan nan Cailleach agus Ora nam Bandia branches of the community.

Clann Eóghain. Tha mi a fuireach ann Wabanahkik. C0-còrdadh: Kaswhenta. While my family culture growing up was diasporan Gael (Irish/Scottish-American), and my low BQ gives me white privilege / passing privilege, I also have distant indigenous heritage from both Turtle Island (Catawba/Yęh Iswä H'Reh) and Sápmi. I am an unenrolled descendant with Native family and relatives, from both ancestry and adoption. I'm a long-term member of several Indigenous-led collectives, active in Indian Country in largely a backup/support role since the 1980s, and in more recent years in interfaith and political work as both a collective member and as a representative of our GP groups. I don't presume to steer the canoe, even when it's one that my cousins have built and are helming, but except for my fellow Gaels and other diverse relatives, I jumped out of the ship almost a decade ago. I'd much rather swim with the otters, and continue my work with the side of the family I live with now, than get back in, unless it's to sabotage and change the course. I do that sometimes.

I serve on the governing councils of CAORANN and Gaol Naofa; however, all opinions expressed on this blog, and posted elsewhere under my own name on social media, are my own.